March 13, 2008
Spring break, lots of work to do (no beaches for me). Have I neglected noting the carnivals? There are a lot of good posts gathered in some of them.
Liberals
Tangled Up in Blue Guy hosts the 60th Carnival of the Liberals. Pay particular attention to Digital Cuttlefish’s little spur-of-the-moment poem on Sally Kern, an Oklahoma state representative who was caught red-eared, on tape, in a bigoted rant. Poetry doesn’t get the respect it deserves; this guy shows real wit in his rhyming.
Prehistory, archaeology
Four Stone Hearth #36 cooks along and warms our brains over at Afarensis. I think every history teacher and every geography teacher should visit this carnival from time to time, to find some of the best new stuff for the early chapters of every history course, the prehistoric human section that is never as good in the class textbook as it is in the journals or in these blogs. Who among us hasn’t had someone ask for the “final, definitive reason” the Neandertals went extinct? Instead of just answering “we don’t know,” you can refer a student to the “mad Neandertal” hypothesis, and ask them to report back on it from A Very Remote Period Indeed). Science, and history, are not settled on these issues — how better to let students see that than to experience some of the discussion? Psychology teachers probably should note this post from Not Exactly Rocket Science, on PET scans of human and chimpanzee brains while the subject is communicating. That’s just two posts in the carnival.
Education
Learn Me Good hosts the 162nd Carnival of Education, the March Mathness Edition. Take a look at Dave on Ed’s post about how school administrators are quick to jump on calling for change to match whatever is the latest fad in education, but slow to provide teachers with the training required to make the changes work. What fad is he talking about? Well, all of them — but you remember the talk a couple of weeks ago about the Finns getting education right? Mom is Teaching has some comments about the Finns beating Americans.
Psychology and neuroscience
I’m watching psychology more closely these days, especially with older son Kenny now working on a neuroscience degree, so I’ve been paying more attention to Encephalon, the carnival on psychology and neurosciences — Encephalon 40 finds a home at Mind Hacks. Hitting almost all my buttons, there is a pointer to a post discussing what is the real history of psychology at Advances in the History of Psychology — what counts as history? Great discussion. Encephalon 41 is due on March 17, at Pure Pedantry.
History
History Carnival 62 has been up for a couple of weeks at Spinning Clio. I just got there a couple of days ago — and you need to go see it, too. The History Guru has a series of podcasts on western civilization, the Western Intellectual History Lecture Series. Can you use this in your classes? Figure out how to use it in your classes. If you’re not making iPod recommendations for your students, you’re missing the boat and so are they. Go check it out at least. Such activities threaten to drag teaching into the last decade of the 20th century. There’s hope we can drag teaching into the 21st century sometime before 2090. The President of France proposes that each 10 year-old child in France memorize the history of one child deported from France during the Holocaust. Good idea or not? See the discussion here (yes, it’s in French; this is the internet, put on your grande fille culottes or pantalons adulte and deal with it). [Why is it that high school history texts never explain the origin of the name of the political movement in Paris, the sans-culottes? How could any kid fail to remember a movement known as “no-pants?” Do the book authors not know that kids would be interested?]
The History Carnival is particularly rich for high school teachers, I think; see these posts:
Over at Progressive Historian, contributor “midtowng” believes that the S&L Crisis is repeating today and compares it to the S&L crisis of the 1980’s .
Jon Swift exclaims Castro Resigns! Sanctions Work!
“It has now been forty years since May ’68, and yet we still haven’t gotten over it.” Greg Afinogenov looks at why.
Economics
Is the American Economics Blog Carnival the economics carnival I’ve been searching for? Struck in Traffic hosts the March 1 edition. Hmmmm. Not sure.
Okay, enough of the Midways. Where is the Fletcher’s State Fair Corny Dog Shack? (Controversy there, too!)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
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1968, Economics, Education, History, History audio sources, Podcasting, psychology, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Weblogs, World history | Tagged: blog carnivals, Education, History, Politics, psychology | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 6, 2008
Greg Laden wrote a wonderful piece about teachers under fire for teaching evolution.
It’s specific to evolution, so biology, psychology and social studies teachers should take note (yes, social studies — the Scopes trial shows up even in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)).
But teachers under fire for other things should read it, too.
Laden also links to last year’s special edition of the McGill Journal of Education, from Canada’s McGill University. That’s the issue on teaching evolution. It’s got something for policy makers, too — see the article by Dr. Eugenie Scott on why “teaching the controversy” is academically flaccid, and not legally correct.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
February 17, 2008
I always loved school carnivals. The elementary school versions always featured silly games and activities to appeal to kids of third grade mentality — right up my alley! Then I joined the PTA board at our kids’ elementary, and saw the numbers. The annual carnival took in several tens of thousands of dollars. A lot of that money bought new library books, some bought new science programs, all of it went for better education.
I really like a well-run carnival now. Here are a few well-run carnival events.
Carnival of the Liberals #58 flew to England, at Liberal England. Double the posts, ten from England, ten from the Americas. Geography and history teachers might be particularly interested in a post at Pickled Politics on whether Australia’s government will follow up with real action following their official apology to the continent’s aboriginals, for past mistreatment.
Will I ever catch up with the Carnival of Education? Teachers ought to browse this weekly — I haven’t looked at it weekly in the past month. Let’s go back to #155: Bluebird’s Classroom has a post about a teachable moment, involving her unit on weather, and the tornado warning that popped up during class. Pay particular attention to her use of the LCD projector and live television link. Odds are that your classroom can’t support such teaching, as mine cannot right now.
The rest of Carnival of Education #155 plays out at Median Sib. But I’m much farther behind. #156 resides at Creating Lifelong Learners. #157 can be found at Colossus of Rhodey. #158 moves in at Instructify. That one features this post (from Creating Lifelong Learners) about using your iPod in class to high purpose. I’ll wager there is not a school of education in the U.S. that teaches iPod use as a tool of classroom control and educational excellence. This is why we need to read these on-line collections. (“Hot 4 Teacher” graphic borrowed from Instructify.)
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2 Comments | Anthropology, Education, Education blogs, Education quality, History, Justice, Politics, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, War on Education, Weblogs | Tagged: Education, Edumacation, Politics, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 15, 2008
Depression presents a serious occupational hazard, moving back and forth between the classroom and business, classroom and internet. When do administrators and legislators get serious about catching up education?
Microsoft plans a product announcement at the end of this month. Rumors claim it’s a new version of Photosynth. Photosynth mades “3D” touring by computer possible for almost any destination.
I’ll wager not a single classroom in the nation is ready to make this work. If you disagree, I’d love to hear about the class that can make use of it.
System requirements for Photosynth won’t tax the computers that most high school gamers use, but they are beyond most of the classroom computers I’ve seen in the last five years.
Probably more to the point, curriculum designers in public schools don’t even have Google Earth on their horizons. Photosynth? I’ll wager it’s not even on the radar screens of GIS users in the nation’s Council of Governments (COGS).
Geography is an exploding discipline. GIS and computerized map programs make cell phone companies go, not to mention oil and gas exploration, coal mining, air pollution monitoring (for building new power plants, for example), and road building. GPS helps drive express shipping, and all other shipping. RFI and GPS together are revolutionizing retail.
You must know how to read a map just to get a job delivering pizza.
But 9th grade geography classes? The exciting stuff is absent today.
At the Texas Education Agency (TEA), officials fret about how to stop science from being taught in science classes, for fear the facts will skew the religious beliefs of their children. They need to worry about their children not even getting hired by the pizza delivery company for being ignorant of nature and science, and the maps that show them. In a competitive, technologically savvy world, inaction, dithering and damaging action by the TEA mean our kids won’t even have a prayer.
Relevant posts:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
February 13, 2008
Southern Methodist University’s Clements Center for Southwest Studies will host a high-powered symposium in April, “Indians and Energy: Exploitation and Opportunity in the American Southwest.”
The symposium is set for Saturday, April 12, 2008, at McCord Auditorium in SMU’s Dallas Hall, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Teachers and community college professors may earn up to 7 hours CEU credits. Registration is available on-line. The $20.00 fee includes a luncheon; conference-only registration is an amazingly inexpensive $5.00.
Conference organizers are looking at a second wave of energy resource development in the Four Corners region, especially, following on earlier development of uranium ore extraction, and coal-fired power generation.
The symposium and the resulting book of essays will provide an historical context for energy development on Native American lands and put forth ideas that may guide future public policy formation. Collectively, the presentations will make the case that the American Southwest is particularly well-suited for exploring how people have transformed the region’s resources into fuel supplies for human consumption. Not only do Native Americans possess a large percentage of the region’s total acreage, but on their lands reside much of the nation’s oil, coal, and uranium resources. Regional weather patterns have also enabled native people to take advantage of solar and wind power as effective sources of energy. Although presentations will document histories of resource extraction and energy development as episodes of exploitation, paternalism, and dependency, others will show how energy development in particular has enabled many Indians to break from these patterns and facilitated their social, economic, and political empowerment.
My second job out of high school, and through much of my undergraduate days, took me to Farmington, New Mexico, and far around the area for the Air Pollution Laboratory at the University of Utah’s Engineering Experiment Station, to measure air quality and effects of air pollution resulting from the Four Corners Power Plant, as the San Juan Generating Station was under construction.
I’m planning to attend the symposium.
Especially after last Saturday’s sessions for history teachers at SMU (the Stanton Sharp Symposium), I highly recommend these programs for their ability to charge up high school teachers to better classroom work. This is history, and economics, at its best, looking to improve public policy and help people.
Planned presentations are listed below the fold, copying the information from the website for the symposium.
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5 Comments | Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Native Americans, Natural history, Natural resources, Teaching | Tagged: air pollution, coal, Economics, Glen Canyon, History, Native Americans, Navajo Tribe, Politics, teacher training | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 8, 2008
Everyone who knows him thinks highly of him. When the rest of the teachers in the department need help, they turn to him. The school is struggling to achieve the state’s testing standards, and much hope rides on this guy.
So, yesterday in the staff meeting, when he complained the news media were aiming specifically at him, the generally noisy teachers fell suddenly silent.
Studies may be generally accurate, but they are, by nature and design, generalizations. Across Texas yesterday, good teachers in struggling schools took a hit they don’t deserve.
I’m sure that’s not what the authors intended.
See this story in the Dallas Morning News. Check it out in the Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
Look at the report, from the Education Trust, here.
So far, I can’t tell if the study said anything about improving conditions for teachers to encourage the good ones to stay in the profession and take the tougher assignments. Conservatives will see this as a call to fire more teachers, I’m sure. Reaction will start any moment now.
Tip of the scrub brush to Aunt Betsy.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
4 Comments | Education, Education quality, Teacher Pay, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Texas | Tagged: Education, Education quality, Politics, Teacher Pay | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 29, 2008
How young is too young to blog about education?
Our reader, Dr. Pamela Bumsted wrote about a 12 year-old kid in Southern California who blogs to reach underprivileged kids, at The Edublogs Magazine.
Michael Guggenheim is twelve years old, a full-time 6th grade student in southern California. He’s recently won the Volunteer Service Award from Secretary Spelling of the U.S. Department of Education and another award from the Inland Empire Branch of the International Dyslexia/Dysgraphia Association. He’s been interviewed by Good Morning America, the LA Times, and CNN. And he’s a blogger.
Michael Guggenheim uses his blog for education – as a teacher to document his nonprofit organization and his extracurricular activities teaching even younger students how to use a computer.
S.P.L.A.T. Inc. (Showing People Learning And Technology) was set up by Guggenheim to help him tutor youngsters at homeless shelters, low income housing projects, and community centers. Whatever funds he raises goes to the distribution of used computers, monitors, printers, and donated software. He himself teaches basic computer skills and also shows the younger children how to use computer learning games.
Got a classroom blog yet? This kid is ahead of a lot of teachers in blogging.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Best practices, Classroom technology, Education blogs, Education quality, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Weblogs | Tagged: Education, Heroes, student blogs, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 25, 2008
Dog and cat breeders, pigeon fanciers, racehorse breeders, and others whose livelihoods depend on their trying to do better than nature at the Darwinian game often offer anecdotes about breeding failures. They thought they might get a faster horse, but they got a skittish one instead; they thought they were getting a good bird dog, but the dog would panic at the shot of a gun.
Breeders know genetics carry a lot of traits, and trying to select for one is difficult. One may amplify a bad trait in addition to the desired trait.
In short, as the actors told us in the old Chiffon Margarine advertisements, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, and not always easy.
In one classic paper that more critics of Darwin should read, researchers discovered that instead of getting better egg production, they got mean chickens that damaged production of the entire flock.
Adam Lerymenko at Greythumb.blog notes the paper, and notes how the phenomenon was demonstrated among humans at the now-failed and discredited Enron Corp. (While informative, the piece may not be wholly safe for profanity filters in schools; the comments may be a problem, too.)
One of my favorite papers in evolutionary biology, which I have mentioned here before, is this:
Muir, W.M., and D.L. Liggett, 1995a. Group selection for adaptation to multiple-hen cages: selection program and responses. Poultry Sci. 74: s1:101
It outlines the group selection effects observed when trying to breed chickens for increased egg production in multiple-hen cage environments. In short, selecting individual chickens for increased productivity in a group environment didn’t select for increased productivity. Instead, it selected for mean chickens. The result was an overall reduction in productivity. Only by selecting at the group level was productivity increased.
The topic is a worthy one for discussion in economics courses, especially with regard to incentives for certain behaviors.
There is this caution: Adam notes that Enron annually fired the “bottom 10%” as a matter of policy, trying to encourage everyone else to work harder, trying to reward productive people, trying to prune deadwood from the corporate vine. At one point, some divisions of GE Corp. would purge the bottom 25%. That’s even more intensive selective pressures, for evil as well as good.
W. Edwards Deming was right, in his 14-point program for getting quality production from corporations and other organizations. He said no corporation ever appears to get it right when they select individuals to blame for problems with annual performance reviews, rather than working to improve processes to improve quality of their products. (See Point 12)
And when legislators try to purge education of bad teachers? Can they possibly hope to get anything but mean chickens? Economists indict our reliance on standardized tests of students.
So much to learn, so many a–holes.
Resources:
Photo: Enron tilted E sign from the Houston headquarters; Associated Press photo via ABC News, January 22, 2008.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Business, Business Ethics, Capitalism, Darwin, Economics, Education quality, Ethics, Evolution, psychology, Science, Teaching, War on Education | Tagged: Business, Economics, Enron, Evolution, mean chickens, psychology, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 15, 2008
Utah’s Cache Valley is home to the city of Logan, and to Utah State University, the land-grant college for the state. For several humorous reasons, some of them good, the place sometimes is called Happy Valley.
Small county in a beautiful setting + good university with a good school of education = good conditions for teacher recruiting. Logan’s schools have been very good over the years, in academics and all forms of competition.
As we discovered with the voucher fiasco in 2007, Utah’s education situation is not completely happy any more. Classrooms are crowded, teachers are overworked, and for the first time since the Mormon pioneers first settled Utah, educational achievement is declining.
The editorial board at Logan’s Herald-Journal noticed the problems. It’s tough to recruit teachers. If Milton Friedman were alive, we’d look for a classic free-market economics solution, something like raising teacher pay to stop the exodus from the profession.
Milton Friedman is dead. His ghost doesn’t seem to have much clout in Logan, Utah, either. What does the Herald-Journal propose? Loosen standards, look for uncertified people to teach.
When people leave the job they worked hard to earn certification for, what will happen with people who are not certified and are untrained in classroom management?
Why not just raise teacher pay, and attract more well-trained teachers?
Let me ask the key question, more slowly this time so I’m sure it’s caught: Why not just raise teacher pay?
Fishing for teachers? Bait the hook with money.
(Full Herald-Journal opinion below the fold.)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 14, 2008
State legislatures shouldn’t micromanage the classroom, parents should monitor student progress, and students should take difficult classes, to get a better education. Utah math teacher Allen Barney lists inexpensive — and unlikely — methods for improving education, in Salt Lake City’s Deseret Morning News.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 14, 2008
Florida may be ahead in the race to see which state can get slapped down first for illegally denying science to students in public school science classes. The problem in national, however.
It’s not always a question of setting standards. Sometimes teachers are told to dumb down classes, regardless the standards. Fort Bend County, Texas, offers an example: “Religious Beliefs Trump Thinking In Our Schools.”
No, Fort Bend County is not in rural, far west Texas. It’s just southeast of Houston, Texas’ biggest city.
Be sure to scan the comments, too.
Belated tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 8, 2008
Tired of odd speakers trying to tell you about how boys learn differently from girls because of the size of the Crockus in their brain?
How about serious material to beef up your teaching: Vietnam, the Russian Revolution, Mexicans in U.S. history, Native Americans in the 20th century, use of the internet in history classes — three sessions, each with three classes to choose from.
The history department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas offers solid education in serious history issues for teachers in colleges and secondary schools. The Stanton Sharp Teaching Symposium on Saturday, February 9 offers great material in nine different areas. Several of these topics seem to be pulled from the Texas Education Agency’s list of subjects that students need to do better on, for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).
Invitation below the fold. The $15 fee includes lunch; you may earn up to 7 hours of Continuing Education Units (CEU) credits.
(I plan to be there, and if you’re really interested in the Crockus and its scholars, I happen to have a photo of the elusive Crosley Shelvador on my cell phone — he appeared to have used one of those spray-on tanning solutions, but is otherwise real, as the photos show.)
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6 Comments | 1914-1918, Africa, America's founding, Ancient history, Cold War, Communism, History, Joseph Stalin, Lesson plans, Lessons of Vietnam, Richard M. Nixon, Russian Revolution, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Vietnam, World history | Tagged: continuing education, Education, History, Native Americans, Russian Revolution, Teachers, Vietnam | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 3, 2008
A couple of carnivals I recommend: At So You Want to Teach? the Carnival of Education #152
And once you’re stocked once again with notions of a liberal education, go check out the Carnival of the Liberals #54 at Neural Gourmet.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 1, 2008
Lisa Schencker writes about Utah’s problems in The Salt Lake Tribune, but you can find exactly the same story in every state in the union, plus Guam and Puerto Rico:
The two Utah men don’t know each other, but they have at least one thing in common.
Ben Johnson is a first-year math teacher at Alta High School. He loves his job, but it’s exhausting and pays well below what he could make elsewhere with his bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
Marc Elgort is a University of Utah graduate student who researches cell metabolism at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He tried teaching but found it stressful, all-consuming and riddled with bureaucratic frustrations.
Both men’s stories reveal different shades of the same problem: retaining and attracting teachers in Utah, especially in math and science. Utah schools were 173 teachers short – including nearly 20 science and math teachers – on the first day of school in 2007, according to a recent report by David Sperry, a University of Utah professor of educational leadership and policy and Scholar-in-Residence with the Utah System of Higher Education. State education leaders worry Utah’s students and economy could fall behind other states and nations if something isn’t done soon.
Utah voters rejected an ill-thought-out voucher plan in November, but the Utah legislature had no plan B — so Utah’s classrooms are still crowded, there’s not enough money to provide merit increases to teachers who need them, teaching is a grind instead of a calling, and that means it will take a lot more money to get the teachers the students deserve — money the legislature hasn’t appropriated and probably won’t when they get back to the issue early next month, for the legislature’s 30-day budget session.
At some point we will have to stop working for education reform, and start working at education rescue, if these conditions are not changed.
Don’t smirk if you’re not from Utah. I can find a school in your state, probably in your town, with the same problems:
Johnson, like 8 percent of new teachers hired to work in Utah schools this year, came from out of state. Several Utah school districts recruit from elsewhere because Utah colleges and universities trained about 1,200 fewer teachers than schools needed this school year, according to Sperry’s report.
Johnson made most of his contacts at a job fair in Michigan.
“Every person that found out I was a math teacher pulled me aside,” Johnson said. “You could see how desperate they were.”
He said he interviewed with several school districts and received an offer from each one. He ultimately chose Jordan.
That’s where the easy part ended.
On a recent school day about three months into his career, Johnson invited juniors to the board to work with polynomials.
“Let’s take a look at a couple of things first. What do you see that we can cancel right away?” Johnson asked of one problem.
Several groups of students chatted and laughed among themselves.
“Guys, listen up,” Johnson said. It was one of many times he had to remind students to pay attention.
“It’s really tough,” Johnson said earlier. “I have to be really firm. They’re talking all the time.”
Holding on to the dream: Johnson said classroom management has so far been his biggest challenge – his largest class has 37 students. Utah has some of the largest class sizes in the nation.
“There’s no way I can keep an eye on every single student,” Johnson said.
Utah appropriated a cool half-billion dollars to encouraging teachers in shortage areas, like math, in schools that desperately need them. What does that look like on the ground?
Johnson also puts a tremendous amount of time into teaching. As a new teacher, he is building curricula for several of his courses with help from the district.
“Just building that curriculum takes hours and hours outside of the classroom,” Johnson said. “So does correcting papers.”
Johnson said he has about 180 students. If he gives one assignment or test per class a week, and it takes him five minutes to correct each one, that’s another 15 hours of work.
Johnson makes just over $30,000 a year and estimates he works about 65 hours a week. That boils down to about $13 an hour for the weeks school is in session.
“My wife and I get by, and that’s all I can expect,” Johnson said.
Schencker’s story lists ten bills in the Utah legislative hopper designed to hammer at the problems.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 28, 2007
The lead editorial in Thursday’s edition of The Dallas Morning News endorsed science and questioned why a graduate program in creation science should be tolerated by Texas, and specifically by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). It’s an issue discussed here earlier.
In the first part, “Be vigilant on how they intersect in our schools,” the paper’s editorial board is clear that the application from the Institute for Creation Research to teach graduate education courses in creationism is vexing, and should be rejected:
It’s troubling, then, that the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research, which professes Genesis as scientifically reliable, recently won a state advisory panel’s approval for its online master’s degree program in science education. Investigators found that despite its creationism component – which is not the same thing as “intelligent design” – the institute’s graduate program offered enough real science to pass academic muster. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will vote on the recommendation in January.
We hate to second-guess the three academic investigators – including Gloria White, managing director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Dana Research Center for Mathematics and Science Education – but, still, the coordinating board had better give this case a long, hard look.
The board’s job is to certify institutions as competent to teach science in Texas schools. Despite the institute including mainstream science in its programs, it’s hard to see how a school that rejects so many fundamental principles of science can be trusted to produce teachers who faithfully teach the state’s curriculum.
Keven Ann Willey, the editorial page editor at the News, herds a lot of conservative cats on a strong editorial board that probably reflects the business community in Dallas; several members of that board probably argued that there must be recognition and condemnation of the “persecution of Christians” who are required to learn evolution and other science ideas that conflict with various Christian cults. And so the editorial has an odd, second part, “Faith is, by nature, based on the unprovable,” which calls for respect for religious views by science — without saying how that might possibly apply to a science class in a public school.
Faith maintains its unique quality because it is based on things we cannot prove in this life. By reducing it to an empirical science, it ceases to be faith. Yet, no matter how many linkages scientists uncover to show that man evolved from pond slime, they will never do better than those who rely on faith in answering the ultimate question about a greater being behind our existence.
As the debate rages, it’s worth noting that the world’s great religions agree on the need for science. And even the agnostic Albert Einstein conceded that science can’t answer everything: “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.”
It’s demeaning for the faithful to tout belief as science. But equally so, the advocates of science should be respectful enough to admit that faith is all that remains when science fails to provide the answers we seek.
So, the Dallas Morning News supports the rational view that the ICR’s application to train teachers to violate the Constitution is a bad idea. But they warn scientists to play nice.
Remember, scientists in Texas this year published great research and supported a bond issue to put $3 billion into research to fight cancer. In contrast, IDists and creationists tried to sneak a creationist graduate school into existence, fired the science curriculum director at the state agency charged by law with defending evolution in the curriculum for defending evolution in the curriculum (Gov. Perry is still missing in action, so no word from any Republican to slow this war on science), tried to sneak Baylor University’s name onto an intelligence design public relations site (in the engineering school, of course, not in biology), and tried to pass off a religious rally at Southern Methodist University as a science conference.
Play nice? Sure. But this is politics, not playground, and since the game is hardball, we’re going to play hardball. DMN, you are right in the first half of your editorial: When you’re right, don’t back down. Our children and our economy need your support.
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3 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education quality, First Amendment, Government, Graduate study, Higher education, History, Teaching | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Newspapers, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 